I Love You, You Hate Me, Let's Dance
by wafflehood
Summary: It's the end of their time at Hogwarts, and Harry and Draco end up dancing. Note: Pretty much completely disregards everything after the fifth book.


It's odd, Harry thinks, that despite his seven years at Hogwarts and feeling like he must have seen and done more than most other students, he still thinks there are so much he has left to do. He hasn't played a single prank, hasn't had more than a few kisses, he hasn't snuck out after hours to do something as basic as bathing in the lake or raiding the kitchens.

He's saved the world, but he hasn't had time to be just a teenager.

All around him, his friends are savoring their last night at Hogwarts together. Ron and Hermione are wrapped up in each other, Hermione crying slightly and Ron looking a little pale but not exactly uncomfortable. Neville is chatting to Hannah Abbott, and Harry has noticed him noticing her, and he's happy that she seems to have been noticing Neville back.

In the middle of the Great Hall, bouncing to the music, is a small group of people who are still there. It's well after two in the morning, and many students have gone to bed. Ginny is with them, dancing for all she's worth, writhing against a nameless face that Harry thinks might belong to a Ravenclaw, and he doesn't mind because it didn't work out with him and Ginny anyway.

He can't locate Seamus or Dean, but before he has time to get worried, his eyes fall on someone else instead. A flash of platinum and a thoughtful expression, and Harry doesn't think, he just moves. He gets up from his spot by the buffet and walks over to the isolated corner.

Draco Malfoy glares at him as he approaches. "What do you want, Potter?" he asks.

Harry doesn't really know. He and Draco haven't settled their disputes or come to any sort of agreement, just an uneasy truce because Draco switched sides and Harry kind of understood him.

Harry also kind of thinks Draco might possibly be the most beautiful person he has ever met, and he's definitely one of the bravest. Harry doesn't think he could have turned his back on everything he has ever known, on his family and friends, the way Draco did.

He doesn't know when the kind of understanding and grudging admiration he felt for Draco became something deeper than that. He doesn't know when he fell in love.

Draco is still glaring at him, because Harry might love Draco, but Draco has made it clear that he still doesn't even like Harry. "I said, what do you want, Potter? Because if you're just going to stand there, I was going to head off."

"Why?" Harry didn't mean to ask that question, but he does anyway, because Draco would be the first Seventh Year to leave, and it's not three o'clock yet.

"I'm tired." There's more to it than that, Harry can feel it, but he doesn't ask again. Draco looks highly bothered and a little annoyed too. "Honestly, Potter, don't you have some pathetic friends to cry with and exchange promises of eternal contact, or do you really have nothing better to do than ruin my night with the mere sight of you?"

Harry doesn't move. He's used to Draco saying things like that and it doesn't faze him. "No," he answers, not entirely honestly, because he does have friends he'd like to cry a little with, but he doesn't have anything better to do than talking to Draco.

Draco looks momentarily stunned. "That's just sad," he says, and for a moment he forgets to sound spiteful and almost sounds human. He clears his throat as though he noticed as well. "Did your friends all leave you, Potter? Well if you're asking me, it's about time they saw reason."

"Good thing I'm not asking you, then," Harry says, and he's patient because something about Draco seems like he's trying too hard to be vicious. Like he doesn't really mean it.

"If you're not asking me, then please do tell me why you're pestering me with your presence," Draco spits out, sounding more than a little annoyed, and Harry smiles and shrugs slightly.

"I don't know," he answers and it's not exactly the truth, and he thinks Draco knows, because he looks skeptical. "It's just… don't you feel like we've missed so much? That there's still so much left to do and now we don't have the time."

Draco raises a delicate eyebrow and looks like he genuinely doubts Harry's sanity. "That's it, you've officially lost your mind, Potter," he announces, and while he certainly still sounds irritated, he doesn't sound quite as hostile anymore.

Green eyes meet gray, and Harry nods. "Yeah, quite possibly," he agrees. "Doesn't change the fact that I still think there's a lot of things I should've done but never did." _Such as settle our stupid feud,_ he thinks, but he doesn't say it because Draco is already looking at him like he's sprouted a second head.

"I understand that it's natural for you to go all sentimental tonight, as it is our last night on Hogwarts, but _please_, Potter, explain to me why I'm the unlucky person who has to listen to it?"

Harry shrugs again. "Maybe I just felt like it," he says simply, truthfully, and Draco looks mightily suspicious but not quite as annoyed any longer. It almost makes Harry think that they can part ways as something other than whatever it is that they are right now.

"Shouldn't you be rambling to the weasel or the know-it-all or something?"

Sometime around the time Draco changed sides, Hermione became the know-it-all instead of the Mudblood, and although Harry's absolutely certain that Draco still means it as an insult, it's infinitely better than the previous.

"Can't," Harry says, glancing over his shoulder to where Ron and Hermione are still wrapped up in each other. "They've got their own leaving-Hogwarts-problems to talk about tonight."

Draco follows his line of sight, and Harry can't read the expression on his face. "Why me?" he asks softly, and Harry can't interpret the tone of his voice either.

"Why not you?" Harry counters, and Draco looks at him as though this should be fairly obvious, and maybe it is, but Harry keeps talking before Draco has a chance to say anything, "You know what I'm talking about, though, don't you? There must be some things you wished you'd've done before you left."

"If there was, what makes you think I'd tell you, Potter?" Draco snaps.

"Because I'm willing to listen," Harry replies, and Draco glares at him but there's something soft about his expression that Harry thinks he understands. "I wish I showed my friends how much I cared about them," Harry ventures, when it becomes clear that Draco isn't going to open up to him.

Draco snorts. "They know," he says. Harry doesn't know if he's mocking him or trying to comfort him. Maybe it's a little bit of both. "Honestly, the way those two look at you, anyone can see they adore you, although I can't see why."

"Not Ron and Hermione," Harry clarifies. "Seamus, Dean and Neville. Ginny and Luna. Colin, too, even if he can be a bit annoying. I've never actually told them anything like that. Just kind of took it for granted, and now it feels like it's too late. When we leave tomorrow, I don't know when I'll see them again. I regret that."

There's something in Draco's eyes that looks a little bit like sympathy, but it's gone before Harry can fully identify it. "That's all very nice, Potter, really," Draco says, and he looks as though he's about to say more, but then he stops.

There's a short pause, and then Draco sighs. He fiddles with the edge of his dress robe. "I wish…" he says slowly, looking at something behind Harry. "I wish I'd had the courage to join Dumbledore earlier." He laughs bitterly. "That way, I might have had time to actually get along with someone on his side, instead of ending the year alone."

Something inside Harry hurts. Draco blushes. "If you tell anyone I said that, I'll cut your head off, Potter," Draco threatens, and Harry believes him. After all, he sounds very menacing, and Harry's seen him battle Death Eaters. He can fight for himself.

A new song starts. It has a slower beat than the previous one, and he holds out his hand. "Dance with me." It's not a question.

Draco looks absolutely shocked. "What?" he asks, and then he seems to gather his thoughts and he gets to his feet with a flurry. He doesn't accept Harry's hand. "What the fuck are you playing at, Potter?" he hisses, and the viciousness is back in his voice.

Harry stands his ground. "Dance with me, Draco," he says softly. "Please."

"But we're rivals," Draco points out. The viciousness is gone as quickly as it came, replaced with complete and utter confusion. "It… it wouldn't make any sense."

"It doesn't make sense that we're rivals," Harry says, and he keeps his hand held out for Draco to take. He doesn't feel rejected, although maybe he should. He's always been much too stubborn, and Draco is much too pretty, and Harry hasn't been a teen yet.

He's finally doing something for himself for once.

"It makes sense," Draco says, sounding like a petulant five-year-old. "We've always hated each other, haven't we?"

Harry laughs. "I've never hated you," he says. And it's the truth. He might have disliked Malfoy when he was younger, but he never hated him, and now he can't stop thinking about Draco.

It's funny, the way he thinks of Malfoy and Draco as almost two different people. Malfoy became Draco when he joined the Order. Cool, dislocated Malfoy disappeared and left behind the arrogant and lonely Draco.

"I hated you," Draco states.

"I know," Harry tells him, because really. He does know.

Draco still looks a little suspicious. "I suppose I don't hate you now," he says slowly. "But I don't see how we go from not hating each other to dancing together at the Leaving Ball. Maybe it's some kind of perverse Gryffindor logic that the rest of the world just cannot begin to comprehend, but I digress. Even you lot aren't that dense."

"Maybe it's not Gryffindor logic, but just my logic," Harry says, and he cocks his head sideways.

"Give me one good reason I should dance with you," Draco challenges.

Harry thinks. And then he smiles. "Well, you wouldn't end the year alone," he says, and Draco looks as though he doesn't know whether to smile back or maybe punch Harry in the face. "And you would get along with someone on Dumbledore's side."

Draco glares at him, but there's a smile tugging at the left corner of his mouth. "You're absolutely mental, Potter," he announces. "Ludicrous, even. You do know that, don't you?"

"Of course," Harry says easily.

Draco takes his hand. "I still don't like you," he says as Harry leads him to the dance floor. "I still think you're a messy, spectacled disgrace to society."

"Good to know," Harry says lightly, and wraps his arms around Draco's waist. "I'll lead, then."

Draco lets him lead. Harry's aware of people staring at them, and he knows how it must look. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, dancing? If someone had told him a year ago that this would happen, he would have immediately hexed them for suggesting something that atrocious.

But at the moment, he can't bring himself to care about the people watching. Draco's leaning his head against his shoulder, probably to shield his face from the prying faces, and his hair is tickling Harry's cheek.

It's really rather cuddly and cute, and those are two words that Harry does not associate with Draco Malfoy. He chuckles lowly, and Draco makes a sound in the back of his throat.

"What's so funny, Potter?" he asks, his voice muffled by Harry's robes.

Harry considers telling Draco what he's thinking. He ends up deciding that Draco would probably curse him well into the next year if he did, and instead says, "I was just thinking about how odd this must look. After all, they all think we're rivals."

"Well, we are, aren't we?" Draco reasons. "And it _is_ odd. That we're dancing, I mean. The rival thing, I got used to a long time ago. This is new. And odd."

Draco's rambling. Harry's never heard Draco ramble before. It's kind of sweet and more than a little amusing. He keeps his laughter to himself this time. "I suppose we are rivals," he says. "Well, up until a couple of minutes ago, that is."

Draco makes another noise. Harry can't really understand if it's of agreement or disagreement. He takes it as the former, just because it makes things easier for himself.

They dance in silence for a while. Until Draco speaks up again, in a low voice, and Harry almost can't hear it because he's still hiding his head. "You know, when I said I didn't like you, Potter… maybe I didn't really mean it."

Harry can almost hear the blush on Draco's voice. He doesn't comment on it, though he's sorely tempted to. "Good," he says. "Because I think I like you more than just a little more than I like other people."

And yes, he's aware that he's just admitted to Draco Malfoy that he's in love with him, but he doesn't really care. After all, he thinks it must have been a little obvious when he asked him to dance, and besides, Draco hasn't moved from his arms.

It can't matter that much, really, and even if it does, then Harry will never see Draco again after tonight, and the blonde can go on hating him without Harry knowing. It will all be very dramatic and pointless, of course, but Draco likes that, Harry thinks.

He almost misses the single word that Draco whispers into his shoulder. "Good." He sounds a little pleased, and if Harry holds him a little tighter, then so be it. His stomach is tingling ever so slightly, but he's not really surprised, because Draco agreed to dance with him, and he thinks that this might be start of something.

He's not sure what, just yet, but he's already looking forward to finding out.


End file.
